Americas

There has been a real shift in public opinion against President Bush and
his war in Iraq since he declared victory in Iraq on May 1.

A growing questioning, anxiety, and out-right opposition is building up
against the U.S. occupation of Iraq and even Bush’s entire “war on
terrorism.” The Bush administration is, in fact, facing a serious crisis.

Bush’s approval ratings are hovering around 50% - the lowest since Dubya
stole the White House - and a majority of the population (52%) believes
the country is heading in the wrong direction. In a late October USA
Today opinion poll, only 45% said they would vote for Bush next year,
down from 56% in April.

Only 47% approved of his handling of Iraq, a sharp drop from 80% in
April. Thirty-nine percent supported withdrawing some U.S. troops from
Iraq and an additional 18% wanted to withdraw all the troops, versus
only 14% who wanted to send more troops. Various November polls found
that only half the population now thinks it was worth going to war, down
from over 70% in April.

A massive 60% of people polled opposed Bush’s request for $87 billion
for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Public anger at this bill
was so strong that Congress only agreed to pass it with a “voice vote”
so that no members of Congress could have their individual vote recorded!

A major reason behind this shift in public opinion is the exposure of
the President’s two main justifications for the war as blatant lies. The
U.S. military has occupied Iraq for over 7 months, and they still have
not found a single weapon of mass destruction. Bush was also forced to
admit that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had no links with the Al
Qaeda terrorists. It has become apparent to millions of Americans that
Bush has put U.S. troops in the line of fire to secure oil, profits, and
power for his corporate friends.

Enormous anger is also building up among the troops themselves and their
families. At a very early stage relative to previous anti-war movements,
this has taken an organized form with the rise of the “Military Families
Speak Out” and “Bring the Troops Home Now!” campaigns, which have moved
to the forefront of the emerging movement against the occupation.

U.S. imperialism is already over-stretched militarily. To maintain troop
levels in Iraq Bush is facing the unpalatable choices of either
extending the length of soldiers’ tours or calling up more troops from
the National Guard. Extending soldiers’ tours would only further
undermine the morale and deepen the anger of rank-and-file soldiers. To
avoid this, he has called up 58,000 reservists to serve a long 18-month
tour in Iraq. However, uprooting reservists will have huge repercussions
on their families and communities.

Against this background there are important signs of the re-emergence of
the anti-war movement. Forty to fifty thousand people marched on
Washington D.C. on October 25 demanding an end to the occupation in the
first national anti-war demonstration since the fall of Baghdad in
April. This protest signalled the beginning of a new period of mass
protests within the U.S. against the occupation.

This reality, along with the growing anger of workers due to the
economic crisis, is sending shock-waves of fear through the Bush
Administration and the Republicans, who are increasingly worried about
their election prospects in 2004. Bush is now desperately trying to
devise an “exit strategy” in order to extricate himself from the Iraqi
morass. But this will not be easy. The U.S. is now ensnared in an
extremely complex, costly and bloody conflict.

Withdrawing from Iraq without leaving behind a stable, pro-American
regime (an extremely unlikely prospect) would be a devastating,
shattering blow to Washington’s prestige. However, if the U.S. stays in
Iraq, it will face a continuing guerrilla war, mass resistance, and
growing U.S. casualties and costs.

Emerging Mass Anti-Occupation Movement

The anxiety and outrage at Bush’s occupation have developed quite
rapidly as the U.S. has suffered 400 deaths and 9,000 injuries. But as
long as the occupation continues, these numbers will inevitably rise.
What will be the political consequences at home when the U.S. suffers
600, 800 or 1,000 deaths in Iraq?

After the experience of Vietnam, Americans have a very low tolerance for
U.S. casualties in wars abroad. The development of massive protests
before the Iraq war, regularly involving 100-500,000 people, clearly
demonstrated that the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as horrifying as they
were, did not erase the “Vietnam Syndrome” from the consciousness of the
U.S. population, as some commentators were predicting. Ironically, the
war and occupation of Iraq are tremendously re-enforcing it, shattering
the White House hawks’ dreams of using the Iraq war to decisively
overcome the Vietnam Syndrome.

Based on the current trends, the political conditions are ripening for
the development of a massive movement against the occupation in the
U.S., possibly reaching the size of the anti-Iraq war movement or even
the enormous anti-Vietnam War movement which shook U.S. society to its
foundations.

The movement against the Iraq war last year involved an important number
of workers, but it was somewhat isolated from the majority of the
working class. There is far more potential for the movement against the
occupation to connect with and tap into a much broader working class
anger at the injury and death of U.S. soldiers and the enormous costs of
the occupation, at the same time that workers are facing economic
insecurity, unemployment, budget cuts in social services, and a
healthcare crisis. The 60% public opposition to Bush’s request for $87
billion to occupy Iraq and the growing anger among working class
soldiers, reservists, and their families are only early signs of this
tendency.

Workers’ Anger Growing

Underlying the growing opposition to the occupation is a rising
discontent among workers at their worsening economic conditions.

Official government figures show 9 million workers are unemployed,
though the real numbers are far higher. Since Bush took office, a
staggering 2.7 million jobs have been lost. Bush could end up presiding
over the largest loss of jobs of any president since Herbert Hoover.

Last year another 1.7 million people slipped below the official poverty
line bringing the total to 34.6 million, one out of every eight
Americans. The number of Americans dependent on food stamps has risen
from 17 million to 22 million. Forty-four million people have no health
insurance, and tens of millions more are underinsured. Since 2001 the
uninsured have grown by 10%, or four million people.

This is on top of the largest budget crisis for state and local
governments since World War II, which big business politicians are
trying to resolve through major cuts in social services such as
education and health care, and by raising taxes on workers and the
middle class.

Anger at these worsening conditions burst onto the surface with a rash
of strikes in recent months, most notably by the strike of 70,000
grocery workers in California, as well as 12,000 grocery workers in the
Midwest. This strike demonstrated a tremendous determination by workers
to defend their healthcare benefits, which have come under attack by big
business all across the country. This was reflected in the widespread
public support for the strike. Working-class Californians understood the
grocery workers’ strike was a battle to defend healthcare benefits for
all workers from greedy, profit-hungry corporations.

2,800 bus mechanics also struck for over a month in Los Angeles, largely
over health benefits, shutting down the public transit system for
500,000 people in the nation’s second largest city.

In another sign of the growing anger throughout U.S. society, 100,000
workers demonstrated for immigrant rights in New York City on October 4.
This was reported to be the largest immigrant rights protest in U.S.
history, which is especially significant considering the post-9/11
war-time context in which immigrants have faced increased racist
violence, arrests, and even deportations simply for having once lived in
a predominantly Muslim country. The rally also demanded the repeal of
the Patriot Act, an important sign of the changing mood towards the “War
on Terror.”

Another indication of the deepening anger in U.S. society was the public
outcry over the summer against the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) decision to further deregulate the giant media monopolies.
Millions of letters, emails and phone calls bombarded Congress demanding
a repeal of the FCC ruling, which eventually succeeded in compelling
Congress to try to overturn key aspects of the FCC decision, despite
strong objections from the Bush administration. This marked one of the
few times Congress voted to reverse a deregulatory measure in the last
two decades.

Bush was dealt yet another rebuff when he attempted to undermine
workers’ overtime pay. Bush’s proposed changes to labor regulations
would have stripped 8 million workers of their right to overtime pay
(Economic Policy Institute). The AFL-CIO trade union federation
organized a campaign which succeeded in pressuring Congress, including a
number of Republicans, to vote down the proposed legislation for the
time being.

Bush Regime in Crisis

The last three years have been eventful, volatile years with a number of
sharp turns and sudden changes: the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the war on
Afghanistan, the mass movement against the Iraq War culminating on
February 15, 2003 (estimated to be the largest day of international
protest in world history), Bush’s victory in Iraq, and now public
opinion beginning to turn against Bush and the occupation.

The experience of these dramatic events has changed the consciousness of
ordinary people. As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter recently
acknowledged: “President Bush’s reward-the-rich ethos is creating class
consciousness among working people for the first time in years”
(Newsweek, 11/24/03).

Only a few months ago it was widely believed that a supposedly popular
George W. was guaranteed re-election in 2004. Now it is clear that it
won’t be so easy with the mounting problems in Iraq and at home. The
continually widening gulf between rich and poor, the intensifying
polarization between the ruling class and the working class, and events
in Iraq could ignite an explosive recoil against Bush.

However, a Democrat in the White House would not offer any real
alternative to Bush for working-class and young people. All the main
Democratic Presidential candidates support the occupation. They
regularly attack Bush’s Iraq policies, but only from the point of view
of trying to convince the ruling class that they have a better plan to
carry out the occupation and defend U.S. capitalism’s interests, by
sending more U.S. troops, securing more international forces, etc.

The Democrats oppose ending the occupation and immediately bringing the
troops home because it would mean a crippling blow to the credibility of
U.S. imperialism. When forced to choose between the interests of U.S.
workers and young people on the one hand and U.S. prestige on the other,
the Democrats choose U.S. prestige - no mater how many U.S. soldiers and
Iraqis are killed, no matter how many billions the occupation costs.

What about the Democrats’ economic policies? The Democrats all support
and defend the capitalist system. This means profits come first, with
the inevitable consequence of accepting layoffs, budget cuts in social
services, and no health care for millions.

Workers and young people need a completely different kind of party from
both the Democrats and Republicans - a new mass party that stands up for
the interests of the millions, not the millionaires. Socialist
Alternative is fighting for such a party - a party that would mobilize
and unite the anti-war movement, trade unions, civil rights,
environmental, and women’s organizations.

If you are against Bush, the war, and capitalism, you should join the
socialists. Economic crisis, wars and instability are all the norm under
this capitalist profit-driven system that is wracked by crisis. To
permanently end war, unemployment, poverty, sexism, and racism we have
to fight to end capitalism and establish a democratic socialist world.